The present inventions relate generally to systems and methods for monitoring user interaction with a remote computer. More specifically, the present inventions relate to systems and methods for the remote tracking and replay of user interaction with a remote computer or webpage.
It is desirable for companies conducting business online, such as by operating business related webpages over the Internet, to be able to observe and/or collect and analyze the interaction of certain users with their webpages. Commercial software for collecting and analyzing summary aspects of user interaction with webpages is known in the art. However, such known tools typically do not permit the collection or analysis of details of individual user interactions with a webpage, such as how an individual user completes a form on a webpage, or which parts of a webpage a user interacts with the most easily, or how a user navigates from one element of a webpage to another, for example.
Other software for remotely collecting and analyzing certain other details of individual user interactions with a webpage is known in the art. However, such known software typically requires that the host or service provider collect user interaction details and also provide the webpage to the user's computer. Such configurations increase the processing overhead on the webpage server and limits the ability of a third party service provider, such as a user interaction analysis service provider, from being able to collect user interaction data from the host server.
As a result of such limitations, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods that provide remote tracking and replay of user interaction with a webpage that allows for hosting and serving the webpage by one service provider, and collection and replay of user interaction with the webpage provided by a separate service provider, using computers separate from the service hosting and serving the webpage to the user.